As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Today's information handling systems, such as computer systems, include low energy devices which provide the capability of turning into a sleep mode when specific pre-defined events, such as certain signals do or do not occur. For example, modern monitors, such as a cathode ray tubes (CRT) or liquid crystal displays (LCD) comprise stand-by circuitry which turns off selectively certain high energy components when no synchronizing signals, such as, horizontal and/or vertical synchronization signals HSYNC, VSYNC, are not received for a certain time period. Thus, different sleep modes can be defined. For example, if both sync signals are absent a deep sleep mode may be initiated, whereas higher level sleep modes can be entered if only one signal is absent. To this end, such a control circuit receives a normal supply voltage or a stand-by supply voltage from the power supply unit. During sleep or stand-by mode, the high power components are usually shut off, however, the power supply either still runs with only a minimal load, such as, the low power control circuitry or the power supply unit only generates a stand-by supply voltage fed to the control circuitry and shuts off all other components.
However, these devices still require a significant amount of power during a sleep or stand-by mode. Thus, government requirements of many countries are setting an even lower power consummation during a sleep or stand-by mode to further reduce waste of energy. Existing devices, even if equipped with low power modes, will not comply with these new standards because some minimal control circuits have to be kept alive to be able to recognize a mode change, for example, to determine whether the HSYNC and/or VSYNC signals are sent from a graphics controller card to the monitor again.